Students from the University of Sheffield have walked away with three gold medals after dominating the British Orienteering Championships, held in Culbin Forest near Inverness.
Sheffield University Orienteering Club (ShUOC) was victorious, winning the men's and women's individual races and the women's relay race.
Rachael Elder, who recently graduated from the University of Sheffield with a PhD in chemical engineering, s
tormed to victory in the individual long distance course with a time of 62:06 to take the gold medal. She was almost three minutes clear of second placed Sarah Rollins of the British Army.
Laura Daniel, a first year architecture student, took ninth place and earned herself selection for the international Euro meeting in May.
In the men's race it was two podium spots for Sheffield with Oli Johnson and Matt Crane taking gold and silver, just under two minutes apart and a further two minutes ahead of the University of Edinburgh's Scott Fraser.
Both Oli and Matt recently completed their PhDs in Russian and Maths at the University. Dave Schorah, who is studying mechanical engineering at the University, took fifth place in the men's junior race.
With three top performances in the relay from Laura Daniel and Rachael Elder from the University of Sheffield and Helen Winskill from Sheffield Hallam University, the girls took the title of British Champions. They had a massive lead of eight and a half minutes over second placed South Yorkshire Orienteers.
In the men's race the University team of Will Spain, Dave Schorah and Marcus Pinker took sixth place, sixteen minutes behind the winning Interlopers team from Edinburgh.
The results earned Rachael, Oli and Matt places in the Great Britain team for the European Championships which are being held in Latvia at the end of May. All three are training hard for the competition and also aim to be part of the team for the World Championships which will take place in the Czech Republic in July.
Rachael Elder, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sheffield, said:
"We were delighted to win the relay championships, particularly as the Club has never won the trophy before. For me it topped off a fantastic weekend, winning two gold medals is brilliant. These races were a real confidence boost for the European Championships which are also being held on sand dune terrain - I'm really looking forward to it."
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